[Jason] Kuznicki himself is a representative of a currently fashionable sort of cosmopolitan libertarianism that has never existed in governmental form, and which I suspect is the least likely form of government ever to exist. What if a practical politics that took account of human frailty implied a world formed from a combination of cosmopolitan but illiberal city-states, unified but homogeneous nation-states, and sprawling empires that vacillate between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies? In fact, this is the world that has existed for most of recorded history. Perhaps the real ideological blinders are those which tell us that we have transcended this condition and can replace it with something else.
Read the whole essay. I agree with much of it, but I am not sure about this paragraph. Today, where are the city-states, other than Singapore, and is Singapore less liberal than other states? The homogeneous nation-states would include Japan and Denmark. What is the dividing line between a homogeneous nation-state and a sprawling empire? Can I assume that China, Russia, and the U.S. are all sprawling empires? What about Canada? Switzerland?
Pointer from Tyler Cowen.
Singapore is definitely less liberal that other rich and highly developed states. It’s not nearly as democratic, no juries in trials, there is control over press and speech (e.g., the Amos Yee case) and the criminal code relies much more heavily on corporal punishment (e.g., the Michael Fay case) and there is nothing like typical Western “due process.” None of these are necessarily bad things – Singapore is a prosperous, functional, and safe place – but they aren’t consistent with the way “liberal” is used in that paragraph.
Anyway, the fact that it exists at all is due to special history and the part played by the US. Until recently, Hong Kong and Macao were similar, illiberal city states, recently annexed by a huge state. Also, there are many countries with considerable but empty land mass, but with over half of the entire population actually living in a single city, and so it’s not unfair to call them “city-state-like”. Think of the Persian Gulf states (e.g. Kuwait), though a lot of open desert / Mideast countries are like that these days, (e.g., Egypt, Gaza).
I think Wilson is using the term “sprawling empire” to refer to demographics instead of land mass. He is talking about states like the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires, or the Soviet Untion, which control territories with high levels of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity, though often with enclaves with high degrees of homogeneity. That is, a state with control over many internal “nations” in the ethno-linguistic sense, as the USSR had effective control over the “captive nations” of Eastern Europe.
I found myself nodding in agreement with that paragraph. The US and Canada are fragments of the once-sprawling British Empire, so in that sense, I’d say they prove his point rather than detract from it. Russia and China: are they not pretty clearly empires held together by authoritarian regimes? The Tibetans and Ukrainians can probably offer some perspective on those issues. Also, note that he says “formed from city states.” Wouldn’t that, for example, describe Germany? A smattering of city states that congealed into a nation state, based on ties of ethnicity and culture?
The US really isn’t “a fragment of the British Empire”. It’s made up of portions of the British, Spanish, French and Russian Empires.
By my count (I’m open to correction), 21 states include areas that were never part of the British Empire, and those states include roughly 2/3 of the land area of the contiguous states (plus Alaska, which is huge, and Hawaii, which isn’t). Some of the Atlantic states, and parts of the Midwest, were part of the British Empire, as were Washington, Oregon and Idaho immediately before they became part of the U.S.
A much larger part of the modern United States is a fragment of the Spanish Empire which, at the time of the American War of Independence, included the Louisiana territory, and Texas, and pretty much everything west to the Pacific except the northwest. And in between then and joining the U.S., the Louisiana Territory switched to being part of the French Empire – and Texas became independent.
Just sayin’.
Why point this out? Because I’ve noticed a strong northeast-centrism in the culture and political identity of the U.S. It often appears – especially when you live in the northeast, that many people identify “the U.S.” strongly with the corridor between Boston and DC, and the rest of the country is something of an afterthought. I’m struck by the parallels to the Roman Empire, with DC as Rome, the northeast corridor as Italy, and the rest of the country as the provinces.
The US really isn’t “a fragment of the British Empire”. It’s made up of portions of the British, Spanish, French and Russian Empires.
Geographically, you are of course correct. But to quote Handle’s comment, “I think Wilson is using the term “sprawling empire” to refer to demographics instead of land mass.” Culturally, the French and Russian influence is pretty small. Spanish is different, though largely because people from formerly Spanish America move here, not because much of the Southwest was once New Spain (and for a few decades after that, Mexico). Certainly not because Louisiana for a short time went from French to Spanish control.
I think you are absolutely right that, “It often appears – especially when you live in the northeast, that many people identify ‘the U.S.’ strongly with the corridor between Boston and DC …” But I don’t think that looking back two centuries to see what country claimed what part of the present day US sheds much light on current cultural differences.
In reply to an equally pedantic comment 🙂
“But I don’t think that looking back two centuries to see what country claimed what part of the present day US sheds much light on current cultural differences”
I guess I’m saying that current cultural differences shed light on which two-centuries-ago empire the US looks back to. Perhaps Otto von Bismarck was thinking something similar, when he said that the most important fact about the 20th Century would be “the fact that the North Americans speak English”.
Pretty pedantic comment. Just sayin’.
Thank you! 😀
He says “illiberal city states”. So I don’t think he’s calling Singapore liberal.
That said, sometimes a little illiberalness protects liberty. Singapore doesn’t have a totally free press, but it isn’t a totalitarian state and its control over discourse has kept it from the culture wars we have here. The US government can’t fire someone for speech, but a Twitter mob or a culture war CEO sure can get people fired and blacklisted, so how much real freedom of speech does one have.
LKY was right to bad unproductive speech, to define unproductive speech correctly, and to implement policies that were successful so people wouldn’t have many grievances in the first place. If someone has a legitimate grievance in Singapore, and they bring it up in a respectful and logical manner, its not as if they can’t get a fair hearing and have change implemented. It’s not North Korea.
Similarly Singapore has corporal punishment, which I guess people consider illiberal, but it also has no crime. Crime violates the rights of victims. When a state, which has a monopoly on violence, allows crime to harm its citizens it is in effect robbing them of their liberty.
Of course LKY was a great spokesmen for why some limitations on liberty had to be implemented in order to achieve greater liberty overall. The results speak for themselves.
It’s worth noting as Handle does that Hong Kong and Macao turned out similar. So its not all LKY being a great man of history. These city state banking centers with Chinese majorities have a pattern of development.
Denmark and Singapore are actually remarkably comparable in population and other measures.
http://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/denmark/singapore
>Can I assume that China, Russia, and the U.S. are all sprawling empires? What about Canada?
China, Russia, and the US are gargantuan land masses. I’m no expert on China or Russia, but the give and take between Jesusland and the United States of Canada (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Jesusland.png) are exactly the “vacillate between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies,” I think (Mama’s, don’t let your liberal arts majors grow up to use physical science terms).
Canada is also gargantuan and contains both Quebec and Letterkenny.
>Switzerland?
No idea. Anyone else?
This was a nice essay, and the comments are interesting and provocative. Thanks to everyone.
When I think of “Empire” I think of the old land-based dynastic empires such as the late Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the old Habsburg Monarchy (which became formally Austria-Hungary, the dual monarchy, only after 1867).
Some people think of the British Empire, which was Maritime.
Some people think ancient Rome, even if their knowledge of it is very sketchy and fragmentary.
I found this essay and discussion thread fascinating, and could comment at length.
One bit of reading that immediately came to mind was this:
http://www.isegoria.net/2016/07/imperial-overstretch/
something else that popped into my head is a provocative and perhaps chilling aphorism from James C. Bennett:
“Democracy. Immigration. Multiculturalism…pick any two.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Bennett
I think that’s where the tendency toward “illiberalism” comes from. You can’t have more of all good things at once.
= – = – = – =
There is a nice book on “Nationalism” by Adrian Hastings, now about 20 years old. Toward the end Hastings remarks that the strongest supporters of the European Union, traditionally, have tended to be Roman Catholic by religion, Social Democratic by party affiliation, and from a territory that was part of the old Holy Roman Empire.
Business and Trade require trust. law is an imperfect substitute.
Politically strong states require allegiance, not just grudging obedience.
See for example this:
https://20committee.com/2012/12/18/why-the-european-union-is-not-the-habsburg-monarchy-2-0/
On one level, communities require duty, not just “rights.”
Various people (methinks including Jonathan Haidt) have argued that cosmopolitan liberals tend to “burn up social capital.” It’s easy to find cases in which that happens. It gives me an uneasy feeling.
Thanks for listening.
That essay was not coherent, so probably the comments will not be so, either.